


Any Chance to Be Close to You

by StardustPages



Series: Widobrave Week 2020 [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast is a Mess, F/M, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining, They both deserve nice things I don't know what to tell you, Widobrave Week, confessions?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:09:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StardustPages/pseuds/StardustPages
Summary: TravelerCon is hours away, and the Mighty Nein are hard at work to make everything as perfect as possible! But when the mere sight of flowers throws Caleb into a spiral of memories and a desire to be close again with the one he fears losing the most, a talk that is long overdue might just come to light... A fic for Widobrave Week Day 3: Flowers.
Relationships: Nott & Caleb Widogast, Nott/Caleb Widogast, Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Series: Widobrave Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673128
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Any Chance to Be Close to You

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever be on time with these prompts? The answer, unsurprisingly, is most likely no. Even so, thank you all for the kind words on my fics for the previous days this week. It means a lot to me. As per usual, apologies for any typos, it's the wild west out there folks, what can you do? Anyway, please enjoy my fic for day 3 of Widobrave Week!

Day 3: Flowers

* * *

With TravelerCon merely one night away, the Mighty Nein are working as hard as they can to get everything set up and ready to go for whatever might happen good or bad come morning.

  
Jester made it her honorary duty to make everything as beautiful as possible, working to make more cloaks and statues of the traveler for the many attendees she was expecting. She also is currently in the process of throwing her home-made sparkles on anything she can get her hands on, much to Caduceus’ chagrin, which has inevitably led to him somehow being roped into her many plans for the day to try and keep her under control.

  
Fjord and Beau were well underway in building and assembling tents, dining tables, and setting up the stage for the main event the Nein had planned for the next day. What had started as a simple passage of time with the duo casually and calmly setting things up soon devolved into a shouting match between the two of them, the other members of the Nein just barely being able to hear shouts of _what are you doing?! I said put it over here!_ And _I heard you the first time but you’re wrong! Jester said to put it over here!_

  
No one was brave enough or energized enough to dare get in the middle of it.

  
Veth and Yasha had decided excitedly early in the morning that they were going to spend the day scowering the island for wildflowers, so that they could assemble as many flower crowns as possible for not only the (hopefully) many followers of the traveler arriving tomorrow, but also for the Mighty Nein themselves.

  
And Caleb…

  
Caleb was spending his day staring at Veth.

  
Or as he liked to call it, pretending to read and re-read his spellbook in preparation for tomorrow… _while he actually just stares at Veth._

  
He can’t help it.

  
Watching her assemble flower crown after flower crown just makes Caleb realize how long it’s been since she put flowers in his hair, or anyone’s hair for that matter! And that thought just sends him spiraling into the deep parts of his brain that as of late have been rotating around a few thoughts and ideas such as _gods, how long has it truly been since she has chosen to put flowers in my hair for good luck? How long has it been since her and I had a conversation alone together? How long has it been since we’ve told each other how we’ve been feeling?_

  
And the most pressing:

  
_How long do I have till she leaves me?_

  
Perhaps it’s this terrifying thought that leads Caleb to find himself standing above Veth, his hands fumbling with a copper wire, the very thing that will always remind him of her, as he watches her slowly realize a shadow is blocking the sun from her view, looking up to him with a smile on her face.

  
“Hello Caleb!”

  
“H-Hallo.”

  
They hold each other’s gaze for what feels like minutes, neither of them willing to speak.

  
Yasha simply stares at this exchange before shaking her head, a smile fixed to her face as she stands up. “I’m going to go see if there are any different types of flowers left that we missed further into the jungle…”

  
As she starts to walk away, her shoulder brushes by Caleb’s and she gives him a knowing look.

  
“Caleb.”

  
“Yasha…”

  
She smiles softly, and proceeds to make her way into the thick underbrush of the jungle, disappearing from view, leaving Caleb to his fate.

  
He clears his throat awkwardly, realizing that Veth is still staring at him, a look of confusion and something he can’t quite place on her face.

  
“Those are beautiful flowers,” he says quietly.

  
“What?” She replies, before looking down at the flower crown in her lap, seemingly having forgotten what she was doing before Caleb showed up. “Oh! Yes! They’re lovely!”

  
She goes quiet for a second, looking down at her hands and back up to Caleb, with a look of uncertainty. “Do…Do you want a flower crown?”

  
_Of course I do,_ he thinks. _But it’s not the flowers I miss, I miss you. I miss being close to you._

  
Which leads him to say what he does next, “I’ll do you one better, would you do me the honor of having you braid flowers in my hair?”

  
Veth’s hands freeze in their assemblage of the crown in her lap. Her eyes trained solely on Caleb’s face. “You…you want me to braid your hair? W-why?”

  
Caleb kneels down in front of her, a soft grin firmly taking hold of his face. “I think I’m definitely going to need some good luck for tomorrow. This could be dangerous…I’ll need some help being brave.”

  
Veth’s mouth breaks into a grin, “Oh you’ll need all the help you can get to do that, won’t you?”

  
“Will you do it?”

  
“Of course.”

  
Veth moves to position herself behind Caleb and begins slowly picking wildflowers from the many piles that surround the two of them from Yasha and Veth’s exploration earlier in the day.

  
One minute in and Caleb realizes that perhaps…this was a mistake.

  
It’s been so long since they have been close like this. Ever since her transformation, when they shared a bond that made them closer than they have ever been before, it’s as if they’re both afraid that something has changed. That if they get close like this it will be different now…

  
_That now this isn’t enough._

  
Caleb has always needed her by his side, this has always been the case and will be the truth till the end of time. It just hasn’t been till recently, what with being able to give Veth everything that she has wanted, to know that she might be happier somewhere else, it hasn’t been till realizing that he could lose her the day after tomorrow that he’s come to realize he desperately needs her close to him, that it’s easier to breathe when she is nearby.

  
_So what the hell is he going to do when she is gone?_

  
He doesn’t know what to do about it, and with the way they have been avoiding each other for the past few weeks, going so far as to discuss helping her with a spell and them both then putting it off again and again for the simplest and most unreasonable of excuses, he’s come to the conclusion that perhaps she doesn’t know what to do about this, about them, either.

  
Veth now sits in front of him, having worked her way around Caleb’s head, braiding in flowers anywhere she can, and Caleb is left feeling torn because he hasn’t felt this at ease in weeks, but his heart is continuously leaping up into his throat, as Veth’s face is not even two feet away from his own while she starts the last of the braids.

  
“Veth the Brave…”

  
“Yes?”

  
“Are you excited for TravelerCon tomorrow?”

  
Veth pauses her braiding to look him in the eye for just a moment, searching his face for some reason as to why he asked this question no doubt.

  
“I’m excited to help Jester in any way I can, of course. I’ll admit that I’m nervous when it comes to how things are going to turn out but with all of us involved, I’m sure it will be okay.”

  
Caleb nods gently, his eyes traveling the length of her face, an amused smile overtaking his own as he sees her tongue sticking out in concentration, something he hasn’t seen since the time they finished the spell that made her into who she is today. Giving her everything she wanted, giving her what she believes she needs.

  
_Giving her a reason to leave._

  
Caleb clears his throat, and softly speaks up again, “Are you ready for it to be over? To finally be back home with your family like you wanted?”

  
This time she does not stop her motion of braiding his hair, but Caleb can feel the slight jolt in her movements in response to his question, and he can see the way her shoulders shrink in, as if she is trying to make herself small, trying to remain guarded.

  
_It never used to be this way. Not when it was just us…_

  
“I-I guess so. I think so…” she sighs, “To be honest, I don’t know. I thought I would be ready for all of this to be over when I got my body back. That my mind, heart, and body would all align, and I would finally know what I wanted, and that I would be fine staying with Yeza and my son, ready to move back home and that would be it. And I would be happy with that.”

  
“And would you? Be happy with that, I mean. Is that what you truly want?”

  
“I thought it was. I don’t know. Maybe I could be happy living the rest of my life that way. It’s just…”

  
She pauses, taking a deep breath before continuing, “Well you see, there’s just one thing that keeps making me question everything I thought I knew, something that scares me how bad I want it..”

  
Caleb moves from staring straight on at her shoulders to looking her in the eyes. He sees indecision clearly on her face, but he also sees something else. A crack in the mask she has been wearing ever since she transformed, the high of changing into who she wanted to be leaking away into what he now sees before him. 

  
And he can see it plain as day, the woman he loves. 

  
_And she is hurting._

  
“What is it?” he whispers.

  
Slowly but surely, Caleb watches as Veth’s eyes move from his own down to his lips, then back to his eyes in one quick motion. As if it was subconsciously, and if Caleb felt like he could blink right now he would have missed it.

  
“Something I can’t have.”

  
With that, she finishes the braids, and sits back on her heels to admire her work, leaning away from him, and in turn, leaning away from the confession that has just slipped past her lips as well.

  
“There, all done! It looks lovely, you know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again you’re very handsome, Caleb, anybody would be lucky to have you.”

  
He blushes, “You look very lovely yourself, Veth.”

  
She gives a small smile and sarcastically responds, “Oh, this old thing?” Motioning up and down her body.

  
“Of course, you are as beautiful as always.”

  
Veth frowns, “You don’t have to-“

  
“It is true. You were beautiful before your transformation and you are beautiful after. It does not matter to me what anyone else may say. To me that is the truth.”

  
She sighs softly, putting her hands on her hips, giving him a pointed look. “Caleb Widogast…”

  
Caleb puts his hands up defensively, “What? I’m merely telling you the truth! You’d have to be crazy to think otherwise!”

  
She shakes her head, laughing lightly, shifting her gaze from him to her hands that lay between them, firmly grasping a half-finished flower crown.

  
Her expression grows dark, a look of quiet fear slowly overtaking her face. “Why did you really want flowers in your hair?”

  
Caleb closes his eyes, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. 

  
When he opens his eyes, he expects to see Veth still staring intently at the flower crown in her hands, but instead her eyes are once more staring intently into his, searching for what he isn’t sure.

  
Despite every instinct within him to lie, for his sake, for her sake, for the sake of everything that he is so afraid to lose, Caleb realizes that with TravelerCon almost upon them, and with that knowledge that the end of TravelerCon means the end of what they have, perhaps he truly has nothing left to lose…

  
“I don’t know.”

  
_Coward._

  
Veth sighs, perhaps realizing that whatever she is looking for she won’t find in his face, only through the words he is too scared to say. “Caleb, you know you can tell me anything right?”  


  
The hardened mask his face has been maintaining for he doesn’t know how long in this whole ordeal cracks just a smidge.

  
“Of course.”

  
She shuffles forward so that their knees are now touching, a point of contact that Caleb was in no way prepared for after so long with nothing between them. She drops the flower crown to the ground, instead taking his hands in her own.

  
Despite the fear coursing through Caleb’s veins at the thought of where this conversation may inevitably be going, of how this may be the last time he may get to hold these hands in his own, he cannot help but feel the extreme sense of comfort and warmth inside that comes from holding the hand of the one who has always been there for him, the one who will forever mean the world to him.

  
The one he can’t bear to lose.

  
She runs her fingers over the tops of his knuckles, and when she speaks, it comes out as barely a whisper, but Caleb knows that she could have shouted it and he would still have no choice but to tell her the truth.

  
He cannot bear lying to her. Not now, not with the end so close in sight.

  
“Caleb, why did you want me to braid flowers in your hair?”

  
“I don’t know…Maybe I miss it? The bright colors that used to flood my vision. Maybe I just miss the smell of wildflowers so close to me at all times. Maybe I miss the sense of comfort that they brought me…”

  
It takes almost all the power within him to swallow at that moment. His nerves at an all-time high as his eyes are still locked on hers as she sits so close.

  
“Maybe I just missed it because they always remind me of you. And…and I miss…I miss y-you.”

  
Caleb watches as Veth freezes, and he can hear the sharp intake of breath that comes from her form as she stares at him as if he just told her he was planning to kill her.

  
Or maybe that’s just Caleb projecting the fact that what he just admitted might actually kill _him_.

  
After a few seconds of silence between them, too long for Caleb to hold off the worries that start eating away at his mind, but apparently long enough for Veth to finish the internal conversation that he can clearly see happening in her eyes, her body relaxes from the stiff state of fear it was in mere seconds before.

  
Veth sighs softly before reaching out to pull slightly on a small braid in Caleb’s hair that remains loose from the ponytail it once was in, and Caleb notices the single small, pale blue flower that has been expertly woven in between the braid as it swings in between her fingers.

  
Where Caleb expected disdain or disgust on her face due to him being so forward, he is stupefied to see only a look of endearing fondness in her eyes, a small almost pained smile etched into her face. 

  
“Why are we both such idiots?” she whispers.

  
Caleb chuckles, releasing the tension that had claimed his bones, leaning his head forward and down so that their foreheads are pressed together, so that every breath they take is shared between the two. 

  
“This seems to be a reoccurring theme for us…being unable to say what we really want to say to each other.”

  
“I know!” she giggles, “It doesn’t make any sense! We’re so good at sharing ideas with each other and working on spells! We’re partners in crime for crying out loud! It shouldn’t be this hard!”

  
Caleb sighs, “I wish every day that it wasn’t this hard.”

  
“What’s stopping us?”

  
Millimeters apart, their eyes meet.

  
“Fear.” They both whisper.

  
“Fear of ruining what you have. What you deserve.” He breathes.

  
“Fear of losing you. Fear that you will always deserve better.” She mutters.

  
Caleb brings his hands up from where they were hanging loosely at his sides to now hold her waist steadily as Veth moves her hands to cup his face, giving them both a sense of deja-vu to their first attempt at Veth’s transformation spell, when everything felt so painful and dire, like it could be their last goodbye.

  
And in a way, this feels the same.

  
_Unless…_

  
Caleb takes a deep breath in, a determined look coming over his face. “I wasn’t lying before when I gave you my first reason for wanting these flowers.”

  
Veth looks to him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  
“I did need them to be brave.”

  
“Brave enough for what Caleb?”

  
He moves one hand to pull a single flower from his own hair and tuck it behind Veth’s ear. 

  
“Brave enough to do this.”

  
And with that, he kisses her.

  
He kisses her more passionately than he has kissed anyone in his entire life, and he realizes very quickly and with much surprise, that she is doing the same.

  
It’s messy, and a little awkward, but after a few seconds they are in sync, and Caleb cannot help but think to himself, _why do they both keep running away from this? Why do they run when their bodies fit so perfectly together, when the safest place they both could be will always be within each other’s arms?_

  
Caleb slowly starts to feel himself falling backwards as Veth leans forward into him, the two of them eventually falling to the ground, surrounded by the many beautiful wildflowers that started it all.

  
When they break away, Caleb can vividly see the adoring look in Veth’s eyes, and he knows that his love for her can be read clear as day, through not only his eyes, but in the light laugh that escapes his lips. A laugh that is saved for no one else but her.

  
They lay like this for a minute, just staring into each other’s eyes and holding each other close. Daring the other to be the first to say something, to do something. To continue this wonderous thing that has begun between them that they have both wanted for so long…

  
And then they hear someone clear their throat.

  
And time stops.

  
Both Caleb and Veth turn their heads to the sound, equally horrified when they immediately see Yasha a mere six feet away, having just emerged from the thick trees of the jungle, carrying what appears to be a large armful of flowers from another portion of the island.

  
Yasha stares at them with a look of surprise on her face, not disgust, which to Caleb at least, seems like a good sign, but she does drop the armful of flowers where she stands and makes to take a step forward.

  
Veth shoots up like she’s been struck by lightning, ironic when faced with the woman that stands before them, and stares at Yasha while continuing to straddle Caleb’s waist.

  
And all Caleb can think to do in the moment is cover his face with his hands.

_This’ll go over well._

  
Veth starts waving her hands around frantically, “Yasha! It’s not what it looks like!”

  
Caleb can’t see Yasha’s face, but he can figure out her expression by the smirk he hears in her voice when she says, “Really? Because from here it feels like its exactly what it looks like.”

  
Veth looks down at Caleb, and at herself, and the position she currently is in, and proceeds to shriek loudly, rolling off of Caleb and springing to her feet. “Aaah no! What? It’s nothing! Caleb fell and I was just helping him out!”

  
Yasha laughs, striding forward with one hand on her hip and another pressed to her chest. “Oh yes, it looks like you were helping him out alright.”

  
“YASHA!”

  
Caleb feels a shadow blocking out the light from behind his hands, and as he parts his fingers to look in-between them, he is greeted with the sight of Yasha standing above him, the smirk he heard in her voice now very apparent on her face. 

  
“Hello, Caleb.”

  
“Hallo…”

  
Caleb then feels his body being jolted upwards as Yasha very quickly pulls him to his feet. She gives him a once over, taking in the flowers in his hair, his now ruffled clothes, and the way his face must surely be blushing a red brighter than even his hair, and she begins to laugh.

  
Caleb looks across the way and sees Veth frantically running her hands through her hair, pacing back and forth in what appears to be deep, panicky thought, and all Caleb feels like doing in the moment is laughing at the complete 180 their current situation has just taken.

  
Yasha dusts off Caleb’s shoulders and turns him, pointing him in the direction his first came.   
“Caduceus has been looking for you, Caleb. He said something about starting a fire? I assume that he means for dinner as the sun is starting to set. I’m sure he could use your help. Unless…”

  
She looks at him pointedly and then to Veth, “You are preoccupied that is…”

  
“No!” Caleb and Veth shout at the same time, proceeding to then stare at each other over Yasha’s shoulder.

  
“No”, Caleb says again more quietly, “No, it’s fine. Thank you for letting me know, Yasha. I-I will go find him now.”

  
Caleb starts taking mechanical steps forwards, eyes trained straight ahead until he is about to pass Veth, his eyes instinctively making their way towards her.

  
She’s already looking at him.

  
Immediately they both look away. Out of embarrassment? Who knows?

  
The feeling of love shared between them has not been lost since they were interrupted, but a sense of fear has crept in at the edges of their minds. Fear of what this means. Fear of what comes next.

  
They turn away from each other simultaneously, speaking softly.

  
“Veth…”

  
“Caleb..”

  
He continues onwards, walking away slowly at first and very quickly breaking into a fast jogging pace out of sheer panic at recounting their time together in his mind. In but a moment he has disappeared over the hill, leaving Yasha and Veth alone surrounded by the many flowers beneath their feet.

  
Yasha moves to stand next to Veth, picking a flower up from off the ground, one that no doubt slipped out of Caleb’s hair in his quick attempt to leave the conversation. 

  
“That went well, didn’t it?”

  
“Not. One. Word.”

  
“I’m just saying you two seemed very close, looks like you got what you wanted…”

  
“Yasha I mean it.”

  
“You know, I knew I sensed something between you two a long time ago. It feels nice to be right. Was it worth it?”

  
“YASHA I WILL DESTROY YOU!”

  
“I’d like to see you try.”

  
And with that, the two of them get back to work, making over a hundred more flower crowns for the chaos that TravelerCon would surely be come morning.

  
And as a message comes into her mind from Caleb, quietly and awkwardly summoning both her and Yasha for dinner, Veth can’t help but look fondly at the flower crown in her hands as she gets to her feet.

_Yeah, it was worth it._  



End file.
